Saturday, December 27, 2014

The big American in Australia

Vivian and I were having a lazy evening, watching movies and eating Thai in bed. After, Vivian got up and went to take the dishes upstairs. (There will be plenty about Vivian, back story and all, in other posts. This story was just too funny to wait.)

A minute later she came back in, plates still in hand, eyes big, and asked me if I was good with spiders.

She had told me previously about her major issues with spiders. It's on the level of "will kick you out of her house" for joking that there's a spider near her. Seriously. Anything spider related is totally off limits. Okay, no problem for me.

When Vivian came back into the bedroom and mentioned a spider, my big ego, American, white knight streak emerged with a hard on. Of course, I'll vanquish the arachnid and save the day!

I got out of bed in my boxers, chest puffed out, flexing my arms. "Alright, where is he?"

Vivian steps out the door of the bedroom, points down the hallway toward the light at the far end, near the ceiling.

The spider was so big, I didn't even realize what it was... like, no, that's way too big to be a spider, must be a stain or a shadow or something, where is the little, eight-legged creature?

Wait, what? That's the spider? This thing was a massive Huntsman, the size of my palm, easily visible against the white wall all the way down the hallway.

It's not an exaggeration to say that my testicles retracted and my voice went up a couple octaves. I'm good with spiders, at least our dainty, American spiders but this thing was a freaking monster! It probably spends it's afternoons hunting puppies for a light snack.

"Oh, and they jump," said Vivian as I reluctantly edged closer to it.

Fucking terrific. Here I am trying maintain my manly image while simultaneously trying not to piss myself. I just knew that if it jumped at my face I'd scream like a little girl and go running back into the bedroom. Maybe if we never had to go to that side of the apartment ever again we'd be alright.

Oh, did I mention I was only wearing super hero boxers?

It took a few minutes hunting around the "safe" area of the apartment to find a suitable box, a broom with a long enough handle... Okay, I was only stalling a little bit... before working up the nuts to try and usher this big, hairy, jumping, fanged, beast into my pathetically tiny looking plastic tool box with my too-short looking broom.

Wait, how far do these things jump? (Research after says 6 meters or 18 feet. Probably good I didn't know that at the time.)

Vivian went upstairs. I didn't blame her and it meant that my panicky, weak efforts with the box and broom weren't being watched. I warned her not to try and record the attempted capture from the stairs, it would have been way too embarrassing later. I don't need to go viral for pissing my Marvel boxers and shrieking because the big ass spider looked at me funny.

Fortunately for me, the spider wasn't too excitable and I managed to safely contain him without too much work. No girly screaming involved.

Once it was safely contained, the tool box locked shut (I checked four or five times to make sure), I couldn't help but laugh hysterically. Holy fucking shit is that a massive spider. Holy shit, that is a massive fucking spider. I dumped the box outside the complex and I swear it started chasing after me when I ran back toward the door.

Oh yeah, look at the big, manly American trying to save the day in Australia. At least it all worked out okay, the spider lived another day to eat more puppies and terrify more tourists, I managed not to embarrass myself too badly, and Vivian was happy with the spider-free hallway.